Happy B-day, Mark Twain

To commemorate the 175th anniversary of Mark Twain's birth on November 30, 1835, NPR's Tom Vitale set out for Elmira, New York, in the Finger Lakes, where the writer spent many summers on his in-laws' Quarry Farm. Click here to follow along on Vitale's literary adventure and to find out some neat details about Twain's writing life–like the fact that his octagon-shaped writing studio was modeled after the pilot house on a riverboat, emulating Twain's former profession (one he claimed to love "far better than any I have followed since").

Check out some of our previous posts about Mark Twain:

Twain's Feast

Touting Mark Twain in 2010

Mark Twain's Island Paradise

Mark Twain's Nicaragua